Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Julia Spicher Kasdorf

The public is invited to join Julia Spicher Kasdorf from 4 to 5 p.m. on April 19, in the Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, for a presentation on Fred Lewis Pattee's novel, "The House of the Black Ring: A Romance of the Seven Mountains."

Penn State Press invites the University community to its annual Holiday Book Sale. This year's one-day-only sale will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 4, in the Kern Building lobby on the University Park campus of Penn State. Faculty, staff, and students will receive a 25 percent discount on purchases at the sale and through the press's website (using the code HS2012). Free shipping is available to on-campus addresses; regular shipping charges apply everywhere else. The sale will include a special $5 book table. For information on any of Penn State Press's titles, visit http://www.psupress.org or call 814-865-1327.

Since the 1970s, an idealized stereotype has emerged, where Amish people are seen as products of a happier time when individuals lived in harmony with one another, the earth, and God, says Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Associate Professor of English and Women's Studies at Penn State University.

Writer Ernest Hemingway dodged bullets as a war correspondent, fought bulls in Spain, and hunted big game in Africa-but when asked to name the scariest thing he ever encountered, he answered, "A blank sheet of paper."

For many of us, the symptoms of writer's block-staring at a blank computer screen or page with no clue how to begin, stomach clenching, throat tightening,-are all too familiar. But is our suffering a real syndrome or simply an excuse for being unproductive?